Hold Congress Accountable

Knowledge is power. It makes sure people understand what is happening to their country, and how they can make a difference. FreedomWorks University will give you the tools to understand economics, the workings of government, the history of the American legal system, and the most important debates facing our nation today. Enroll in FreedomWorks University today!

Search FreedomWorks

Resources

Blog

American Virtue and Our Libya Debacle

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” -John Adams

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

Knowing the President had authorized a military attack in violation of the Constitution, the administration called the bombing a "kinetic" action - obviously avoiding the word “war.” Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Adviser, stated the following:

I think what we are doing is enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals, which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone," Rhodes said. "Obviously that involves kinetic military action, particularly on the front end."

Continuing with the “kinetic” obfuscation, President Obama wrote to Congress implying most of America's activity was non-kinetic and continuing to minimize the acts of war.

“Since April 4,” the president wrote, “U.S. participation has consisted of: (1) non-kinetic support to the NATO-led operation, including intelligence, logistical support, and search and rescue assistance; (2) aircraft that have assisted in the suppression and destruction of air defenses in support of the no-fly zone; and (3) since April 23, precision strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles against a limited set of clearly defined targets in support of the NATO-led coalition's efforts.”

President Obama and his supporters will claim that Congress has not declared war since World War II. Correct; however, it raises a critical moral issue. The President and every Member of Congress take an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution. They have totally abrogated the Constitution. Most certainly, America would have been a more moral and competent country had all the military actions since World War II required Congress to declare war. Not only, Congress would have to study and debate all military action in the best interest of America. The Nation would be actively engaged in the decision process.

Libya is the latest example of failed military decisions. Since the death of Qaddafi, the interim government lacks the military and police powers to make the country safe for its inhabitants. Thus, Jihadists have greatly expanded their power and commandeered dangerous weapons making Libya very dangerous and impacting neighboring countries.

A Congressional and We the People debate would have completely explored all potential outcomes.

Tragically, September 11, 2012, four Americans were murdered in Benghazi, Libya. Again, the Obama administration had a moral decision to make. Wrongfully, the administration attempted to deceive the American people into believing the attack was a spontaneous response to a blasphemous YouTube video. The President, Secretary of State Clinton, United States Ambassador to the United Nation Rice, Press Secretary Carney and many more government officials maintained the “spontaneous” storyline until it was completely proven false. The murders were a preplanned attack by anti-American militant forces. The following are the false statements made by Carney, Rice and Clinton:

MR. CARNEY: We certainly don't know. We don't know otherwise. We have no information to suggest that it was a preplanned attack. The unrest we’ve seen around the region has been in reaction to a video that Muslims, many Muslims find offensive. And while the violence isreprehensible and unjustified, it is not a reaction to the 9/11 anniversary that we know of, or to U.S. policy.

“Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous – not a premeditated – response to what had transpired in Cairo.”

"The office of the director of National Intelligence has said we have no actionable intelligence that an attack on our post in Benghazi was planned or imminent."

At the founding of America, John Adams knew politicians craved power and would violate the Constitution:

“Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net.”

Adams reasoned and appreciated that only virtuous officials would protect the Constitution and freedom:

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.”

Adams warned We the People must be moral and involved in governing:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Military aggression is always a moral decision. Our Constitution calls for Congress – not any one person – to debate and make the decision on when to engage in war. We the People must be intergral to the process. America will be a safer, stronger and more moral nation when we honor and respect our Constitution – especially when we have a national debate on exerting military force.

I completely agree with the statements in your conclusion, but most ardently towards the theme of morality. Using under-handed measures and obviously sideways lingo to perform illegal military operations should be addressed, because, if anything, they cause the probability of harm on the American people to go up. That is the only statistic I really need to know to settle my personal morality with the situation. If it could further endanger any innocents, then it shouldn't be an option on the table, in my humble opinion.

When even the liberal Associated Press suggests the stimulus isn't working as we're told, you know the bloom is coming off the Obama rose, and Americans are slowly but surely learning the destructive fiscal folly of his economic policies. In an article reprinted in the Denver Post yesterday entitled "Stimulus jobs overcounted nationwide", two AP reporters lay out details of companies that substantially overstated the number of jobs they claimed to have "saved or created" with stimulus money.

In a display of arrogance and racial politics shocking even for this administration, President Obama's Justice Department recently invalidated the will of an overwhelming majority of voters in Kinston, NC to make city elections non-partisan.From the Washington Times:

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Wall Street Journal noted last week that members of so-called "Generation Y" are heavily in favor of President Obama's proposed health care reform, despite the fact that they will be the ones left to deal with the fallout from long-term cost overruns and degraded quality of care.

On September 9, 2009 Barack Obama gave a speech on health care before a Joint Session of Congress in which he said that “every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage.” In an email to its members on August 27, 2009 promoting vigils for those who can’t afford health insurance, MoveOn cited the same statistic of 14,000 people losing their coverage every day. From where did this figure come and is it accurate? MoveOn cites a study done by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank, in February of 2009 as the source of the statistic.

Call me old fashioned, but if I remember correctly the U.S. Constitution was drafted specifically to enumerate powers granted by the governed to their government. And it’s a very short list. Which, as far as I know, says nothing about mandatory taxpayer-subsidized, government-rationed universal health insurance.

Over the 4th of July, Freedomworks volunteers collected hundreds of signatures on petitions opposing socialized medicine at Tea Parties and other events across the country. Last week, FreedomWorks interns delivered those petitions to the appropriate members of Congress. Below are photos of some of those deliveries and contact information for each office. Thanks so much to those patriots who signed and sent in petitions!

For those of you interested in my view on GM's bankruptcy and the future emergence of Government Motors, please see my article at HumanEvents.com. (My agreement with Human Events does not permit me to post the text of the article here.)see “GM Bankrupt: Obama Takes Over", Ross Kaminsky, HumanEvents.com, 6/1/09 http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32085

The president announced today that he plans to cut $17 billion out of the budget. It's great to see the president living up to his promise of scouring the budget "line by line" to make cuts. It's a start, but it is only a tiny fraction of the $3.4 trillion budget. In fact, the cuts amount to one half of one percent of planned spending. The White House says they are not done yet though, so hopefully we will see some more cuts soon.